All posts filed under: Film

Melanie Gilligan: The Common Sense

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‘Technologies change us – our attitudes, our behavior, and our bodies’, Melanie Gilligan observes with downright honesty. How new media and technology takes our daily lives into a stranglehold – with all its good and bad implications – has always been something that fascinated me. Are we still in control or are we turning into a meaningless, remote-controlled mass? Who are we or pretending to be behind an invisible mask? What does self-fulfilment and social interaction mean in our day and age? The versatile mixed-media Canadian artist, who works with video, performance, text, installation and music, incessantly asks said questions as part of her creative projects. Similar to previous works ‘Crisis in the credit system’ (2008) and ‘Popular Unrest’ (2010), Gilligan’s futuristic multi-episode drama series ‘The Common Sense’ delves into the effects of political and economical struggle on the individual and the collective as well as people’s ultra-dependence on technology. The experimental narrative of Phase 1 introduces us to a future technology called The Patch, a sort of prosthesis which makes it possible to directly experience the physical sensations and feelings …

Illustrated film goodness: Delve Weekly

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One of my favourite mags and absolute movie-go-to source undisputedly is Little White Lies. Well-informed writing, fabulous reviews, sleek design and each issue accompanied by a beautifully illustrated cover for the next exciting, upcoming film release. If only they’d release an issue more often than just every two months. Maybe I’m just being greedy here, but in the meantime, a cool newsletter service luckily dropped in my lap that comes in with a fresh idea to celebrate film week-by-week. Probably still flying a bit under the radar of many, Delve Weekly is the brainchild of London-based creative agency Human After All (who co-founded Little White Lies, btw) and recommends one new film that’s most worth watching at the cinema, bite-sized to our inboxes every Friday. And aside from a well-rounded review by the likes of Peter Bradshaw or Karen Krizanovich and a bunch of intriguing links that compliment the weekly feature, delve also offers a pretty tasty treat for design lovers like me: Alternative poster designs. Once the panel of critics decides on a feature they deem unmissable, the studio bucks up and tracks down just the …

Short Film Gem: Mind The Gap

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There’s these days when I dearly miss London & all the things I left behind. One of them is taking the Tube every day of the week. The noise, the strange anonymity, the familiar faces, the colourfulness and yeah, even the musty smell, unbearable heat and brutal density. Loss is also a fitting term for Luke Flanagan‘s lovely short film that was shown at London Short Film Festival earlier this year & captures Tube melancholy from a moving and saddening angle. ‘Mind the Gap’ tells the story of Oswald Lawrence, stage actor and announcer of the iconic three words and his widow who would visit the tube years after his death to listen to his voice. Heartbreaking & beautiful. Superb work!

Short Film Gem: CODA

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It’s been film festival time in Edinburgh these past days so I guess treating myself to a heap of screenings made me a bit more aware of all these cinematic gems out there, waiting to be discovered. Lucky me, otherwise this beauty might’ve never popped up on my radar as I avidly browsed my Vimeo feed yesterday: CODA is an exceptional short by animation studio And Maps and Plans & director Allan Holly that has been taking home an impressive cluster of 20 international awards, including prizes at SXSW, Edinburgh Short Film Festival or Anca Festival and was among the 10 selected animated shorts at the Oscars 2015. The 9-minute piece tells the story of a lost soul who stumbles drunkenly through Dublin city. In a park, death finds him and shows him many things. It’s a beautiful film full of simple, hand-drawn imagery, a heart-wrenching plot & a moving view on the appreciation of life and the fear of death. Watch below! For more info on CODA, check these links here: andmapsandplans.com @andmapsandplans qlqn.ie …

Desillusion’s The Life We Chose

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It’s one of my favourite things of inspiration ever. Yes, we’re talking about Desillusion Magazine. Fusing the worlds of street and beach, the collective straight from the shores of France’s surf Mecca of Hossegor pays tribute to the youth & a subculture raised on a surf and/or skateboard. Since kickstarting their project in 2002, la maison desillusion has shaken up the print and digital world, released dozens of print mags and documentaries, shedding some light on the many creative individuals who are devoted to their inherent lifestyle and culture. Sticking out with avant garde aesthetics and innovative stories, minimal advertising and great ambitions, they recently turned from regular bi-monthly print issues to hefty hardcover tomes of insightful content. Based on their article ‘Anything that can go wrong, will’ published in Desillusion Magazine 48, Tome 4, director Pierre David now created short film ‘The Life We Chose’ in cooperation with Converse. It features a day in the life of L.A.-based skateboard pro Don ‘Nuge’ Nguyen, talking about the local scene, its communal spirit, his decision to …

‘Russian Roulette’ by Ben Aston

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For some of you short film folk out there it’s probably not a well-kept secret anymore, given all the praise it received recently. And when a friend dashed it into my social media orbit – thanks Martin for the fit occasion – I just thought it’s time I’d share it with everyone: ‘Russian Roulette’ by director Ben Ashton is a brilliant short that narrates a moment in the life of Lucy, a lonely Londoner who ventures on Chatroulette in search for a bit of decent human interaction. And what she least expects in the virtual universe of oddity and the bizarre is a worthwhile encounter. Until libidinous Russian Cosmonaut Yergey turns up on her screen, floating in space. Intrigued? The low-budget production is a cheeky, cute and concise piece of film that voices thoughts about today’s social media generation, internet phenomena, loneliness, distance and closeness, packed in 5 minutes of storytelling. No wonder why Russian Roulette won this year’s Sundance London Jury Prize and since has been nominated for 2015’s Official Sundance Selection. Major Tom, now …

Road Dawgs: Future Islands Short Documentary

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It’s certainly not wide off the mark to claim that there’s no other band quite like Future Islands at present. Besides releasing fabulous records year after year, including probably one of 2014’s foremost albums, the likeable synth-pop three-piece from Baltimore is particularly famed for Samuel T. Herring’s incredible stage presence. Every time I see him perform, I am genuinely wondering if that term has been created just for his own sake. Who’s been to one of their live shows before, probably knows what I’m talking about. If not, you’ll know soon enough. My first Future Islands taster must have been around 2010 in a tiny venue called ‘Sonic Ballroom’ crammed with maybe 149 other people. That place didn’t even have a proper stage. So we’d ended up face to face with an ecstatic frontman about to tick off any second. What is now a kind of known fact about Future Islands shows – at least since this epic performance – was not something I was particularly aware of back then: Screaming, roaring, awkwardly dancing like nobody’s watching, head banging, fists punching …

‘Project Fifty’ by Little White Lies

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As we all know far too well, people’s tastes tend to differ quite a lot and films are certainly no exception here. Before even seeing a flick in its entirety, we’re inevitably biased by trailers, posters, reviews and most of all by our personal likes and dislikes of certain actors, directors, genres or themes. Still, there are definitely a few movies that almost everyone refers to as outstanding, timeless classics. Whether it’s Casablanca, The Godfather, Forrest Gump or Oldboy, you’ll find pretty much everything that shattered, revolutionised or redefined the world of cinema in IMDb’s infamous Top 250 films of all time. Well, but how on earth does, let’s say Charlie Chaplin’s remarkable City Lights from 1931 (#37) get beaten by 21st century sci-fi blockbuster Inception (#15), you might think? Fair question. Maybe because it oddly feels like comparing apples and oranges. ‘So why don’t we just cherish the most outstanding film of each year instead of compiling a general highscore list?’ was probably the initial thought behind Little White Lies’ exciting ‘Project Fifty’. Genius! In celebration …

Mistaken For Strangers @ BFI Film Festival

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It must’ve felt quite surreal after a decade of being that talented sleeper, that clockwork bomb hidden in the shadows of groundbreaking fame. With the release of their fifth studio album ‘High Violet’ in 2010, ‘The National’ finally evolved from critic’s long-standing darlings into one of most celebrated rock bands at present, playing sold out shows all over the world. And their follow-up ‘Trouble will find me’ turned out to be barely less phenomenal. Longingly waiting for the new material to arrive, an announcement nearly slipped my attention: ‘Mistaken for Strangers’, a music documentary by Tom Berninger, who followed his brother’s band on a six-month world tour. Opening the prestigious ‘Tribeca’ in April, hopping from one independent film festival to another and receiving widely positive reviews, the project eventually appeared on the list for the ‘BFI London Film Festival’. Well, what a happy coincidence. Everyone expecting a big budget documentary, elaborate tracking shots, crystal-clear HD-sequences, fancy interview locations and countless minutes of concert footage: Well, that’s not quite it. It’s not a film about The …

The Jewish-American Gangster in ‘The Godfather Part II’

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Well, it’s been a long while since I watched ‘The Godfather Part II” for the very first time. Presumably in our teenage days, when boys were fascinated by the rebellious lifestyle of those gangster bosses on screen, eagerly watching flicks like ‘Goodfellas’ or ‘Casino’. The legendary classics, so to speak. Certainly, back then I wasn’t old enough to fully grasp what it meant to be an Italian, Irish or – slightly less obvious – Jewish gangster in American cinema. This exactly is the initial point, which the talk “Kosher Nostra – Screening the Memory of the Jewish-American Gangster in The Godfather II” by film scholar Dr. Jonathan Munby last Thursday wanted to approach. The senior lecturer of Lancaster University and fellow of the renown Du Bois Institute at Harvard was invited by the Leo Baeck Institute to take part in its lecture series ‘Film Talk: The Jewish Villain’ at the Wiener Library London. Convincingly he carved out the clash of fiction and reality in the representation of Jewish-American gangsters throughout the 20th century with great emphasis on …